


i found a reason (and dear, it's you)

by detectivemeer



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Ensemble Cast, Falling In Love, IN SPACE!, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Pining, Sappy, Scars, Trauma, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-27
Updated: 2018-11-27
Packaged: 2019-09-01 05:39:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16759033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/detectivemeer/pseuds/detectivemeer
Summary: Love is grand. Love is small.





	i found a reason (and dear, it's you)

It grows, like most, soft in his heart. Something living. A rooted thing, stretching, scaling the walls upward. Reaching for more. It starts seedling. Ends forest of stars, canopy of love, growing still. It’s more creature than feeling. More consuming than emotion. And it’s more important, than ever, to get it right.

-

There, at the end of it, he’s quiet. So quiet, in an unfamiliar and almost frightening way. Finn’s profile staring at the dirt, his boots. The war has ended in the sky above them, and the fighting around them has stopped almost as abruptly. Soldiers in white holding blasters against the heads of their fellow stormtroopers, gathering them in restraints, removing all their helmets to stare into their eyes. Far away from them, some still fight, unaware that they’ve already lost. The turncoats with no clear, immediate directive are all staring at Finn, their unmasked faces brighter than the late day sun as it begins its descent. Each individual looking so real, human and afraid, each one of them looking up towards Finn with identical glints of light in their eyes, a brightness called hope.

The weight of all their eyes, all those lives, Poe can almost see the physicality of it hanging off Finn’s shoulders. They bow, draw far apart with a heavy breath.

Finn lifts his eyes. Rey is shouting through the radio still, and in the background more shouting, elation, giddiness and disbelief, relief, so, so much grief. The last, burning ship of the First Order is careening with comical slowness towards the world. The massive bulk of it cutting through the sun’s wide orange stamp across the sky. Smoke, so much it starts to change the color of the air, blurring everything just a bit. 

A smile--or, not quite. Poe has catalogued Finn’s smiles with more care than he’d like to admit, at times. He knows their curve, their meaning, the equation of teeth and squint and tongue that create such spectacular beauty. In this moment, the very edges of his mouth soften, flicker for just a moment. The release of tension, the victory filling him, it’s not a smile, but something profoundly soft and contented, for just a moment. 

And then, he’s fastening his lightsaber to his belt and walking toward the wounded, coordinating medical drones, instructing the stormtrooper defectors how to care for their prisoners, smiling in earnest when resistance fighters and stormtroopers alike cannot contain their hollering, their loud confirmations that it’s over, finally, they did it, _they won_.

Poe, one of the many caught up in the emotion, catches Finn’s eye as their paths cross. The hug is instinctual, or maybe inevitable, and they spin on that world where everything ended, and the shape of the thing he was always too scared to name sears itself across his heart. Eternal, no going back, like all they fought and lost and died for, a change so severe it cracked and echoed across the entire galaxy of his body.

-

Of course, you can’t start it all at the end. The apex, when it’s brought to the surface, in the light, made real, granted existence through acknowledgement--that is only the culmination of all that came before. It was all the moments, small and inconsequential when dissected, but unfathomably huge when assembled, that arc his story forward. 

It was every card game in black predawn, no apologies for not being able to sleep, just comfort in sharing breath and a few, simple words. It was those countless glances on the bridge, when he was reviewing mission plans or listening to orders or making small talk with a captain. His gaze drifting on accident, he told himself, watching without notice, almost second nature. It was the sour fizz of beer that was his stomach when he made Finn laugh or when Finn touched him without care or thought. His hand on Poe’s arm, his shoulder on Poe’s shoulder, his knee and thigh when they sat next to each other. Every hug, of which there were so many. The parts of the whole, too. Finn’s breath next to Poe’s ear, the pressure of his thumb and fingers on Poe’s neck, their chests pressing together, their lungs moving like one unified organ.

It was war, and not all nice, but every second together or talking Finn’s sweetness was undeniable and inescapable. Comforting Poe in his gentle, unobtrusive way. Sharing more meals than not. Finn eats a lot, loves flavor and has some adventurous culinary habits. Enjoying what little down time they had by sharing it. Poe, in his near obsessive constant state of worry, repairing X-Wings with the same fervor of the other pilots, like they could save their own lives with wrenches and rags. Finn, lying on the concrete of the hangar and chatting, questioning, listening. Always interested in learning something, or, when he could, somehow invariably, sense the demons clawing at Poe’s skull, reading aloud with a hypnotic deepness from any book he could get his hands on.

It was all of it. From the moment Finn slammed into Poe’s life. Or, more accurately, from the moment Poe fell into Finn’s orbit. The moment they were close enough that Poe’s sense of direction flipped upside down and magnetized to the shape of Finn’s hands and the color of his eyes; from the second Finn’s sweat stained, manic breath broke across Poe’s face, crowding Poe’s space and promising an impossible escape to a dead man walking. They crashed into each other, saved each other, and drifted but never let one another go. It was the moment Poe looked into his eyes. That’s all it was, just one moment and a ridiculous, impulsive thought that Poe never questioned or regretted: you can trust this man.

-

Poe’s skin is on fire, in his dreams. Sometimes it’s literal, he dreams of burning in something like the hell his grandfather used to try to explain to him. Skin charring to ash, bones bubbling. Mostly, it’s a room and a chair he can’t breathe in, can’t move from, a fire and a hand plunging into his head and burning him from the inside. Invading and carelessly destroying the structures of his mind, touching and twisting him in ways that have him lurching out of bed at just the memory of. He hangs off the side of his bed, clutching his sheets and then stumbling, hand over his mouth, to the bathroom. He throws up, twice, and scrubs the flavor from his mouth with his fingers, neck twisted to gulp, gargle and spit mouthful after mouthful of faucet water.

His skin is clammy with sweat and it takes fifteen long, terrible minutes to calm himself down enough that he’s mostly convinced that it was a nightmare, it wasn’t real, he wasn’t in your mind again Dameron, he’s not going to blow up the base, you’re not going to get everything and everyone you love destroyed. He stays shivering on the bathroom floor too long to maintain any sense of pride, so one day, when Finn knocks at his door and he calls him in with a voice that he doesn’t recognize, he’s too tired to be embarrassed, too grateful for the company.

“Hey,” says Finn as he enters, shutting the door behind him. “Sorry to bother you, couldn’t sleep, I was hoping maybe you’d want to play a game--” He comes up short when he sees Poe on the ground. “Are you hurt?” In an instant, Finn is at his side, touching Poe’s cheek with one hand, the other hovering with uncertainty at Poe’s shoulder.

A bitter, cold laugh. Is he hurt? Is he? “No, I’m fine. Sorry. Just a bad night.”

Finn understands--of course he does. He backs off a bit, which isn’t what Poe wants but Poe’s too cowardly to ask for what he wants. Finn settles on the ground next to him. They both stare at Poe’s bathroom cabinets.

“He was in my head,” says Poe, finally, the silence breaking him. “He was… I don’t even know. I felt like, like a toy. A plaything. He just--it was so easy. I couldn’t _do_ anything. I could only scream.” Another, crueler laugh. And he screamed, oh did he ever. When he was younger, so much younger, just a boy, he would play spies and soldiers with his friends. They’d run around with thin purple grass itching their ankles and tackle each other, point blasters made of branches at each other’s heads. They would giggle and struggle, and play fight under massive, drooping trees. Poe would spit on the grass and never break under the tickle interrogations. Poe was always the one who was caught, the one who was brave and escaped and never told a single secret, because his mom and dad were real heroes, and his friends knew that gave him extra special powers. Eventually, a friend’s parent would call them all in for lunch and he’d race to be the fastest.

That time feels so foreign, now, his whole living quarters smaller than his childhood bedroom, his heroic parents dead like all heroes seem to be, these days. His life shrinking before his eyes, becoming less and less what he was sure it was, mutating into something he doesn’t recognize and can’t remember creating. Every choice brings him further from what he thought the future would be. They’re losing the war. He’s not brave, in the end. On his nightstand, the thread looped through the ring is wearing thinner and more and more when he looks at it he sees an anchor he doesn’t want to burden anyone with. 

Of course, then, sitting in his bathroom with his back to the wall, next to the bravest man he’s known, who has suffered in ways Poe still cannot fully understand, can barely even conceptualize, a swell of hope chokes his chest. This is _not_ a dream. He didn’t burn up to nothing. They haven’t lost yet, and in the end, he’s still fighting.

“I’m sorry,” Finn says, carefully, with such genuine affectation it’s impossible to be annoyed at the platitude.

Poe reaches out with sleep deprived impulsivity and regular, adrenaline seeking brashness, and holds Finn’s hand with his own. “I’m okay,” he says, feeling it more after he says the words than he realized he would. “I’m adjusting. I’m better than most, y’know? Don’t let my moping fool you, I’m doing pretty alright here.”

This is the first moment a kiss enters his mind in a serious way. Finn’s hand is very warm and Poe’s heart is only just starting to slow from its panicked pace. When Poe turns his head, Finn is already looking at him, and his eyes are incredibly close. His handsomeness seems overwhelming, there on a bathroom floor under shitty, weak yellow light, with pillow creases on his cheeks. He is otherworldly, out of place. Art meeting reality. That nose, those eyes, his lashes and the wet warmth of his exhale when he sighs and says, “I wish I could help you. If you need anything, I’m right here Poe.” 

-

It’s all built in stages, of course, unnoticeable at first, increments so small who would bother counting? Until the depth and breadth of feeling could drown him. Until it’s all so colossal and infinitely churning inside him, who would bother to fight it?

The attraction is the easiest to breakdown, because it’s the most obvious. Finn is beautiful. Not very tall but tough, carrying himself with a soldier’s determination, and no small amount of grace. Athletic in all ways, but soft and easy to embrace. His features could be an artist’s fantasy, a man built from paint and an imagination of beauty. Of course, Finn is real, and so his face isn’t handsome just in its serene features, but his expressions. Active brows and bright grins and the rainbow arc of his throat when he laughs. Color and sound, the music of him in action, his life bringing beauty to the room it inhabits.

The only thing really notable about Finn’s beauty is his obliviousness towards it. This is made more apparent through time, when he’s careless with his body that would, in someone else, be a statement or flirtation or dare, but for Finn, is truly thoughtless and innocent of intention. He’s comfortable with his body and his nudity. He’ll strip his shirt off when working out or helping Jessika with maintenance tasks. He doesn’t mind community showers and needed to be herded out of the hallway by Snap the first time, when he was ready to walk without even a towel from the showers to his bunk. He’s not unaware of others’ beauty, though it never throws him off balance too long. He sees people for souls, Poe would swear it. It’s almost eerie. The way Finn can look into someone without even meaning to. It doesn’t always happen, but it reminds Poe of Rey when she stares out the windows of a cruiser at space rock and all that black in between. How she stares at it like it’s not space at all, but a soft and malleable thing she can grasp.

Like everything, the physical bleeds at the edges of all of Finn’s other pieces. His smiles become separate. The blindingly brilliant ones for Rey when they reunite after missions, the smaller ones for her when she whispers something to him. When he eats something delicious, and he closes his eyes with the grin. The small ones, the sad ones. The ones that burst into laughter, the ones after. Tired smiles. Bashful, prideful, uncontrolled. The particular one he gives to Poe, when Poe calls out for him. A sting in Poe’s chest, each time that one is used. The way he moves, the way he watches, so cautiously and carefully, considering everything around him at all times, always waiting for something it seems. Calculating odds. Finn’s consideration of everything and then his brilliant, passionate joy for it all. The intelligence of his eyes and the compassion of his hands. All of him, connected and beautiful.

The scars--

-

Jessika and Rey’s combat moves are by now less practice and more giggling opportunities to get close to each other. Rose, watching with Snap and the rest along the bench seating perimeter, laughs at a comment someone makes and continues tinkering with her latest invention. The day is formally over, and what started as a serious training session has since devolved into a silly, indulgent hesitating in this room with each other, eating up time together, wrestling like children on the sparring mats.

Jessika calls for a referee, citing Jedi powers as an unfair advantage, but she won’t push Rey away from her, and she’s grinning a carefree and happy grin that clenches Poe’s heart. They deserve an evening of pretending to work, enjoying the life of the ship. They all deserve so much.

Finn’s sweat through his black shirt, on his back on the ground, legs bent. He and Rey are the only real challenge in the entire room, and they’d ended their serious sparring with a laugh and a hug more than an hour ago. Now he’s either meditating or napping on the ground, a slight upturn to his lips. Poe tried a boxing him for a bit, but was no real match for Finn’s strength or fighting intuition, and so has since joined him on the floor, shouting the occasional smart ass remark to the room. 

Finn is the first to leave, peeling himself off the floor and stretching, arms long overhead. He waves at their small crowd, who all chorus warm goodnights. Poe is compelled to follow without a thought. He leaves to the sound of laughter, Jess now stacked on Karé’s shoulders, Rose on Rey’s, Snap trying to be an impartial referee of their grapple through his over the top, goofy commentary.

They strip in the showers, Finn chatting about the garden he and Rey are trying to start. Poe steps under the spray, tacky dried sweat melting away, and scrubs a liquid disinfectant soap across his chest and arms. The soap always smells too sharply of chemicals and fake sweet fruit to make him feel clean. He braces his face under the water, eyes squeezed shut against the droplets. He doesn’t want to look. Not because he hasn’t seen, in glancing, in snapshots, because they are in fairly tight quarters and Finn really has no qualms with his body on display. But he doesn’t linger, he looks only when unavoidable, as is the same with all the rest of his team. He doesn’t want to take something not meant for him, something not given. He wants the intent to be there on both sides, the want to look. To linger and consume all in sight.

But he steps to the side to shag a hand through his wet hair and blinks out of the stream, and.

Finn’s back is to him. He’s talking about a book Rose found him, about germination and oxygen. Poe knew--of course he _knew_. He sat at Finn’s bedside, head bowed in an old prayer he hoped he remembered the right translation for, begging the universe to let Finn open his eyes. He saw the doctors and heard the anxious beeps of monitors. Med droids bumped into him and shooed him away, and then alerted him when Finn’s dressings had been changed and he could be moved into a tank that would heal his body, now that it was strong enough. He was there and so, of course he knew Finn was injured, horribly injured, almost killed. But he never saw the full aftermath of such violence, until this moment.

Finn, with that ultra-perceptivity that could be a little spooky at times, cuts himself off and turns around to catch Poe staring.

Poe’s jaw is tight, his brows knitted in fury, eyes wide. “Finn,” he says, the beginning of--what? An apology? An offer to stalk off to the furthest recesses of the galaxy and tear apart the monster who hurt him?

“It’s not that bad,” Finn says, sounding sure.

They switch the water off and begin to towel dry. Finn’s scar is thick and terrible, lightning strikes splintering in his skin off the main, jagged tear across his back. It looks cruel, meant to cause pain. Finn struggled through a lot of physical therapy because of it, and even though he’s healed, it will always be there, a permanent reminder of the memory of agony he already has to live with.

They dress quietly, then sit with the silence for a minute, neither of them sure how to broach the weight of the moment. Their knees almost touch, seated next to each other on a bench. Poe stares at his hands in his lap and feels like a major asshole. He turns to look at Finn.

Finn is already staring, waiting. Poe reaches a hand up towards the collar of Finn’s shirt--impulsive, thoughtless--and traces a few fingertips across the outside edge of the scar and then across Finn’s neck.

“Does it hurt?”

Finn shudders. Poe won’t look at Finn the way he wants to without permission but their physical barriers have always been muddy. Poe is tactile, affectionate. To Finn, this is new, but he enjoys it--needs it, maybe more than anyone, having been denied it and more his whole life. Finn is easy and free with a hug, grabbing people’s hands and standing close. With Poe, who is his friend and who he feels comfortable around, almost anything goes. Cozied close at a table with plenty of room, arms draped around shoulders, reading together quietly on Poe’s bed on the nights neither of them can sleep but they’re too tired for cards, Finn using Poe’s legs as a pillow. Poe will never ask for more but cannot deny Finn a closeness he enjoys just as much.

The air, even this far from the showers, is charged with moisture and a tense, crackling thing that leapt from Poe’s fingertips and Finn’s breath and is growing in the air around them. He should take his hand away from Finn’s skin, but he doesn’t.

“Sometimes,” is all Finn says. Then, after an infinite bout of awful quiet, “Not if someone touches it, though.”

Very careful, so careful, Poe flattens his hand and gently, so, so very gently, curves his hand and fingers along the bumpy path of Finn’s scar, over the whispering cotton of his shirt. Poe hopes to leave a memory of tenderness over all that pain and anger and brutality. His hand travels back to Finn’s neck, curving at the nape, his shoulder.

A moment passes, and Finn sighs and falls sideways into Poe, who holds him. Finn turns his face into Poe’s collarbone, and it could be from the shower, the wetness there. Poe--recklessly, helplessly--presses a kiss to Finn’s temple, and holds him for a few minutes longer, nothing in the universe but them.

-

After the war, the work begins. Rebuilding, relocation. People leave and people join. Most viscerally felt, for him, is the incredible group of terrified individuals who turned on all they knew and had to figure out how to fit into the universe without the First Order, which had been the entirety of their lives. Finn wants so much for them all. At times, as Poe listens to his grand plans and ideas, Finn talking about homes and jobs and names, so many names that need to be given and catalogued, Poe wonders if he sees it. All the world of good, simple, healthy things that Finn wants to give, that he has still never had, doesn’t seem to be trying to find for himself.

Poe is a pilot, there will always be work for him, and it’s easy to turn the days into cargo runs or coordinating supply shipments. This morning is free, though, and he’s huddled in a tiny booth of a creaky restaurant, as Finn shuffles through grander and greater visions for the future. Poe sips a sweet, citrusy drink, watching the tempo of Finn’s hands as they wave through the air, the beat of Finn’s breaths between words, the song in his eyes. He’s talking about Rey, a new Jedi training initiative, collaborating with the Republic to care for displaced refugees, convincing Leia to help with an effort to track down the last few dregs of First Order supporters. He has no real control over any of it, but in his voice is a power that says it could manifest every one of Finn’s thoughts into reality, and listening to him, Poe believes it. Rapt and admiring, he soaks up all that hope, all that ambition and idealism, born from a sacred spring somewhere deep within him that, Poe suspects, only Rey can truly see and understand.

“Anyway,” says Finn, with a small, self-deprecating laugh. “Sorry, I know. I can’t really help the tangents, there’s just _so_ much to do.”

“Yeah.” Poe reaches with ease across the table to pause one of Finn’s hands with his own, waiting until Finn meets his eyes. What must they look like, to an observer? Tucked away at a corner table, lit by tiny orange glowy lanterns above their heads. Curled in towards each other, the casual intimacy, smiling naturally, voices so gentle to one another. Poe squeezes Finn’s hand. “But you’re not doing it alone.” It’s not all on you, he wants to say. I’m right here, we all are, worlds of people are. You’re not the only one who cares. You don’t have to keep saving us all, you did your part, you could leave, now, you could find your home, make your own work, let me say your name over, over, over again because it’s all I want to do.

Finn nods, grins. They settle back into their meal, sharing theories on what Rose’s next project will be, and whether or not Jess actually ate a porg like she claimed.

-

They’re closer to the end, now. Weeks before victory, before the galaxy’s freedom is secured and the First Order’s existence is exclusive to memory. They don’t know that yet, of course, and so every moment is fraught. Nerves like frayed wires, exposed and crackling.

It’s a bad day. They lost an entire squad to a surprise attack and the engineering team still hasn’t devised a way past the First Order’s newest cloaking technology. Poe wants a hot shower and a long sleep, but will settle for falling face first into his cot for three hours before giving a briefing and commanding his squadron on a recon mission.

But even in these moments, the hopelessness and despair of war creeping deeper and deeper within him, every bone of his body aching, his thought and feet carry him to Finn, first. He wasn’t able to check on him after Finn’s release from the medbay and needs visual assurance that he’s healing up alright. Poe makes the usual rounds of Finn’s room, Rey’s room, caf, Rose’s workbench, and finally finds Finn in a private training room. His heart hits his stomach in an instant.

Finn is in shadow, with auxiliary blue lighting at the far corners of the room. Dark grey workout dress, simulation goggles fit over his eyes. With a prop blaster in his hands he rolls across the ground, sighting and taking out targets that only he can see. Every strike is deadly and angry. He drops the blaster and starts a round of conditioning. Push-ups to jumping jacks to a set against the speed bag.

“Are you going to join, or are you here for a show?” Finn’s back is tense, fists slamming a tight staccato against the bag.

“Finn.” Poe walks across the room. Finn’s entire body is rigid, not giving up his momentum. “Buddy, hey, can we talk?”

“About what?”

“Would you look at me?” Poe moves until he’s arm’s length away, waits.

Finn stops and breathes, a long moment of sudden stillness. The breath carries weight through his arms and shoulders until they drop. He turns, only half looking back at Poe, unstraps the goggles and passes Poe to set them back in their charging station. Poe’s hands clench.

“I’m going to reprogram those med-droids if you tell me they let you leave looking like that,” he says, trying for some sense of levity, but his heart isn’t in it. Finn doesn’t react. Poe, sighing, goes to him again, this time lifting a hand to Finn’s jaw, barely touching, to turn his head and face him. The gash above his brow is still bleeding and the bruising across his face is worse than when he first returned from the mission. “Oh, force, Finn. Why--why do you do this to yourself?”

Finn exhales through a clenched jaw, widened nostrils. “I don’t ask the First Order to shoot first.”

_No, but you’re always the first to fight back._ Poe drops his hand. “You did all you could out there.”

Finn snorts mirthlessly. His eyes are dark and blank, devoid of their usual warmth. “Yeah, that’s just it, isn’t it? Everything I can do? It’s not even close to enough.” With that, he walks towards the door, shutting down the simulation.

“Finn.” Poe wants to reach out, touch Finn’s shoulder. Hold Finn’s hand. Say: you are the bravest man I’ve ever known. Wants to say something his heart does not yet have words for. Poe is a wealthy man of desire with a heavy tongue and he waits too long, trapped in his own thoughts. Finn leaves.

-

Poe has patience. Poe can wait. 

-

Who is he kidding? He’s a pilot--he’s always been addicted to the adrenaline rush of the chase.

-

“What?” Finn won’t look at him after opening his door a crack.

“Listen to me,” says Poe, pushing his way through into Finn’s room. He doesn’t care, not now. “You are the best, bravest man I know. You did everything you could out there today, which is three times what any one of us could have probably done. If it had been my squadron out there--”

Finn’s face turns, mouth twisting in with disgust. “Poe, don’t--”

“ _If_ it had been me out there,” he says, forging on, “I would pick you to have my back, first and always, every time.”

Silence sets in like a plaster, molding around them and strengthening with time. With an aching slowness, he looks at Poe. In the dark of his room his eyes shine bright. Poe can see only the suggestion of Finn’s fresh bruises, the cut across his head. He wants to reach out again, like he did earlier in the training room, trace all of Finn’s pain like maybe he could siphon some away through touch. A deeper, instinctual part of him wants to touch simply to feel.

“Do you mean that?” asks Finn, and he sounds so young, suddenly.

“With my life, buddy.”

The smile is so small it might as well not be there, but Poe can feel the air shift as Finn relaxes, some tension leaving his muscles. He sniffs, rubs at his eyes for a moment, says, “Thanks.”

“Yeah.” Poe can feel his heartbeat rocketing in his head--he’s exhausted and upset and needs to be mission ready in a few hours. He leans across Finn to illuminate a small desk light. “You wanna play a few rounds? I could use the distraction for a while.”

The air pulls apart carefully around them. From sharp to malleable, allowing them to move through it in a verisimilitude of normalcy. Finn gets the deck of cards and begins to shuffle while Poe pulls out his seat.

“Me too, by the way,” says Finn, half-way into dealing.

“What?”

And he smiles, a small, careful thing that pricks sharply in Poe’s chest, glancing up without moving his head. “You and me. I’d choose you to have at my back any day.”

-

In the end, it’s really all instinct. That’s what flight school taught him, in the margins. Written in the hair-thin fissures of his ship. He trained, hard, starting younger than anyone he’s ever met. Flying on his mother’s lap before he tripped into the double-digit age-range. She drilled lessons into him that gave him an edge at school; she gave him exposure to the smell of rust, the weight of the wheel, the rickety jump of a worn thruster. His vocabulary was aviation and maintenance and emergency response, he learned the old theories of propulsion before he could actually calculate the math. And then, when he could, he etched his own theories, he ate up new ones. He learned to gut the ship, clean each piece, and put it back together with care. He knows every bolt, the decimal point level of fuel reserves, the maximum limits he can push himself to and be safe or unsafe.

But when he flies--when he’s in the air, and the training and knowledge bleed into him as reflex--that’s all instinct. His mother knew it, though she wouldn’t say it because she wanted him to be prepared, but there is a degree of just _knowing_ what to do, how to turn, when to turn. Sometimes Poe just looks out at the stars and listens the chatter of metal around him and his actions are not his own, but a symbiosis of himself and his ship. Instinct has saved his life, if he’s being honest, more times than not. After his capture, it was hard to trust himself again. Hard not to let his hands shake, his mind doubt. But piloting is the blood beating inside his heart, deep in each and every cell. So he does not doubt for long, especially not when flies.

The second that strange trooper took off his helmet and declared that he could save Poe from his direly sealed fate--Poe saw those eyes and experience told him stormtroopers were murderers, cold-blooded killers with no mercy, no reasoning to be had with them. But instinct said: trust this man.

And, so. 

-

Rey is a confusing thought, at times. She moves like Finn’s twin, by his side, their heads often turning in unison, their eyes always telegraphing a secret language, their smiles all their own. It’s not jealousy, exactly. Poe doesn’t think it’s jealousy, at least not romantic, or physical. But the connection they share is on a level he can’t even conceptualize, let alone touch. There will always be a distance between Finn and Poe because of it. 

But, he reminds himself from time to time, he’s glad that Finn isn’t alone in that space. That he has someone, particularly someone who loves him deeply.

They move together like they grew up in each other’s space, Finn’s arms draped over her shoulders, Rey’s hands curled at his hips. She moves him to the rhythm of the song and he’s laughing in her ear as they dance. They share the same spark in their eyes and damn, but they make a beautiful, vivacious couple, glowing with love and happiness. 

Poe sips his drink, surveying the party with a smile. Moments of celebration and joy were rare in the Resistance, so he's still not used to seeing these people party with such an ease or carelessness. But after the First Order’s defeat, he’d expect nothing less. Only a few months into their new found freedom and still, ex-stromtroopers are dancing like old friends alongside resistance fighters and force, Poe really at times cannot believe the luck of the universe. As he drinks, Rose passes him, grabs his arm, and drags him into the throng of swaying bodies, yelling the lyrics to the song in a language he can’t quite pin down. He lets himself be moved and hugged and spins with old friends and familiar faces, relief filling the room to the point of giddiness. The General is sure to know of their improper use of the X-Wing hangar by now, as it's become a monthly tradition, but these days they can be brazen with their celebrations, with their assertion of life and survival. And he knows more than most, she does not begrudge them for it.

“Hey!” He bumps a shoulder and looks down to a bright smile. Rey takes his hand and twirls herself under his arm. She leans towards his ear and shouts, “Come with me!” And then leads him out of the crowd, towards the edges of the room where they can hear their own thoughts more clearly.

“How’re you?” he asks, angling close to keep the illusion of a civil conversation with the thumping music at their backs.

“Great!” She throws in a thumbs up. “That punch is very strong! Poe,” she says, reaching for him but not settling on any one part of him. “Poe, I know you want to--to--I know you want--” She searches his eyes intently. His throat closes slightly, feeling exposed under gaze. “I know what you want. Just--be careful, with him, okay?”

Poe leans back slightly. He is struck by the clearness of her face. Her youthful, wary eyes. She is tough and often reactive and deeply protective and always very kind. It’s the kind of look that makes you want to befriend someone. And he smiles.

“I couldn’t be anything but.”

She smiles in return. “I know. I know.” And he cannot doubt that she does know, that somehow like Kylo she can see into his mind and extract the truth--though she does it more passively, not by force. “It’s just--” and she looks out into the crowd, so he turns his head as well, and at once they both find the only man worth looking for. Finn is jumping up and down with Rose, their arms hooked together at the elbows. “He’s…”

“I know,” says Poe.

Rey turns to him again with another smile. “Same for you, okay? Be careful with yourself.”

Poe laughs into his drink. “It’s a little too late for that, I think.” 

-

“Hey.”

Finn looks back over his shoulder at Poe. A smile, bright in the dark. Poe lost Finn in the crowd a few songs ago, and has wandered the perimeter of the party in search of him, Rey’s words still freshly echoing in his mind. Finn is perched at the edge of an Starfighter’s wing, legs dangling. The party rages behind them, hum of music and voices at their backs.

Poe scales the X-Wing, settling in next to Finn. “Got bored?”

With something like a laugh, Finn turns his head. “No, just… too loud. Needed a breath.”

Poe understands. Beyond the hangar the night is vast, stars shining. Their base is bordered by thick forest, tonight the trees whisper with a breeze and shake their leaves up towards those bright stars. Poe allows the peace of the scenery, the warm closeness Finn is sharing, the joyful celebration of the Resistance, wash over him. He closes his eyes briefly.

Finn stares with dark, impenetrable eyes when Poe blinks again. He feels utterly seen.

“I didn’t see you on the dance floor,” says Finn.

“You weren’t looking hard enough.”

“I don’t think I could miss you.” Finn moves closer. Does he? Poe’s pulse speeds up. The party feels a thousand years away, suddenly. “Anyway, I wanted to ask you.”

“What?” Poe’s mouth is dry, his hands sweaty. He’s sixteen and never been kissed. He’s all grown up, more in love than he can comprehend at times. He’s petrified. Thrilled.

Finn definitely moves closer.

“To dance.”

Finn bumps him a little. His smile refracts with moonlight. He reaches across them, fitting both of his hands in Poe’s with an expectant look. The world is spinning backwards and Poe has no time to catch up. They stand. And in the dark, balanced on the wing, Finn’s eyes so dark and so beautiful, they dance.

Finn leans in. Poe adjusts, holding him close. They sway in a small, easy circle. It’s absurd to do this, one of them is surely about to trip and fall, break their ankle or neck on the way down--and yet. It’s the way Rey can stare through anyone. It’s the way Finn sees past time, into something else. Poe just _knows_ Finn’s got him, that they aren’t going anywhere, and if they did, Finn would catch him. And the last part he knows, not because of the Force, but because Finn has proven it, time and time again.

They fit comfortably, an old hat contentment. Even still, Poe treats him careful, gentle. Swaying slow, keeping him close. Their cheeks just brushing. Finn’s hands warm and sure. Poe swings Finn under his arm in a quick spin, surprising a laugh out of him. The murmur of the party is a faraway song; it’s the insects in the forest buzzing that they keep rhythm to. An eternal hum, low, soft, turning and melting into one another.

Finn pauses without pulling away. He forces eye contact.

Poe feels wind rushing up to push him forward. Every question, hesitation and concern he’s ever had: Finn’s eyes answer him.

Poe lifts a hand, carefully, gently. Palm to Finn’s glorified cheek. His fingers stroke his skin reverently, lovingly.

Finn’s hands reach up Poe’s chest, resting on both sides of his neck, thumbs at his jaw. He moves in.

-

In the end, one look, one moment, one act of trust: Finn said it was the right thing to do, and it was for them both.

-

And they kiss.

Simply, sweetly. With reverence, and love.

Poe backs Finn against the X-Wing. Poe has one hand on the back of Finn’s head, one touching all of the expanse of Finn’s back. Finn just holds Poe, hanging on, leaning in, in, in. Every sensation, heat, pressure, every sigh; Poe can feel it searing into him. As though they are all that exists. They might as well be.

They kiss, and kiss. The more they kiss, the hungrier, more hurried Poe feels. He can’t get enough, fast enough. Still, there is nothing more important to get right. He pulls back, to look at Finn.

Eyes heavy with a dopey, beaming smile. Poe wants to bottle the moonlight, shower Finn in it every night.

“Is… is this…”

Finn nods, dipping in to kiss Poe’s collarbone. “Always.”

Poe’s head knocks back. “Okay. Are you…”

“Yes. Are you?”

Now Poe pulls apart for real. He gathers Finn’s face in his hands. He has never, will never, hold anything more important. “ _Always_.” Then, he glances down. Huh. “Are we…”

“Yeah,” says Finn, a little sheepish. They’re hovering a foot and a half in the air. Okay, then.

“You are… extraordinary, Finn.” _You are everything_ , Poe wants to say, but can’t quite figure out how.

“Yeah… true.”

Poe snorts, then, a bit of the magic falling like stars around them. He’s not sure what, precisely, he was so afraid of for so long. That things would change between them, that Finn wouldn’t want this, that Poe wouldn’t be all Finn deserves. But it is so easy, so obvious to touch Finn like this, hold him. “Humble, too.”

“Of course.” Finn lets Poe nudge him back against the ship as he grins. “It’s one of my many talents.”

“Mmm,” says Poe. He tips Finn’s chin back, catching another kiss, letting it get a little filthy. Finn blinks very slowly when he pulls away and this time he actually feels them gain another foot of air. “Damn, pal. Gonna inflate my ego over here.”

“Can’t have that.” Finn’s response comes slower than a minute ago, staring with a hunger at Poe’s mouth.

Poe leans in, barely kissing Finn, making him chase it before whispering, “Now, what do I need to do to make us fly?”

Finn’s eyes are darker than the night sky with a light more brilliant than every star. His smile says, _shut up_ , and somehow Poe knows Finn heard all he doesn’t have the words for yet. Their foreheads touch together, and they dance on.

**Author's Note:**

> ahh i just had to post this after tinkering around so long. love these space nerds. title from I Found a Reason by The Velvet Underground  
> find me at the [tumblor](http://katsofmeer.tumblr.com/) and yell at me about how Soft they are for each other


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